AI: Saudi Attacks may have Flouted Int’l Humanitarian Law
Local Editor
The Amnesty International organization denounced Saudi Arabia’s record of killing hundreds of civilians in its recent aggression against Yemen, while also accusing Saudi king Salman Bin Abdul Aziz of presiding the suppression campaigns against dissidents and peaceful activists, according to a statement issued on Tuesday.
Amnesty International said in a statement on Tuesday that, ’Within the new King’s first 100 days in power Saudi Arabia has led a military campaign in Yemen involving aerial bombardments in which hundreds of civilians have been killed, including in attacks that raise concerns that international humanitarian law may have been flouted’.
It added that, ’Nearly 100 days after King Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud came to power in Saudi Arabia prospects for human rights progress in the Kingdom remain grim, as widespread violations continue unabated’.
’At home, scores of prisoners of conscience, imprisoned purely for exercising their right to freedom of expression, association or peaceful assembly, have remained behind bars, and unfair trials of human rights activists accused of ’terrorism’ have continued’, Amnesty International said.
According to Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Director of Middle East and North Africa Programme, he said that, ’Any hopes that the arrival of King Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud might herald an improvement in human rights in Saudi Arabia have been crushed’.
’Instead of taking steps to improve Saudi Arabia’s abysmal human rights record, King Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud has presided over an ongoing crackdown on government critics and peaceful activists, who continue to be intimidated, arbitrarily detained and treated as criminals. The first months of his reign have also been marked by an unprecedented wave of executions in a clear signal that the use of the death penalty is thriving in the Kingdom’, he said.
Amnesty International, meanwhile, noted that, ’Soon after King Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud came to power Amnesty International wrote to him with a number of key human rights recommendations. In particular, the organization called for the release of dozens of imprisoned human rights defenders, reformists, dissidents and activists, including the blogger Raif Badawi, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes, simply for exercising their right to free expression. It has received no response’.
Moreover, Luther said that, ’King Salman Abdul Aziz Al Saud must acknowledge that no true reform or positive human rights change will come about if the authorities do not listen to and embrace peaceful activists and reformists’.
’Under his reign an environment must be established where freedom is not a dirty word and Saudi Arabia’s people are able to exercise their basic rights without fear, intimidation or punishment’, he added.
